The present invention relates to line drawing toys, and more particularly to electronic toys that assists the user in making drawings.
Drawing is a popular activity. There are a wide variety of items that can be used for drawing. The most basic is paper and drawing tools such as, for example, pencils, pens, and crayons. Self-contained drawing toys exist which provide a convenient way to encourage creativity. These drawing toys are like a reusable pen and paper.
There are a variety of microprocessor based toys and special purpose learning and teaching devices. None appear to be intended for drawing. Sophisticated computer hardware and software can provide drawing capability using a number of graphic and drawing programs. Such devices facilitate drawing of lines by dragging an electronic pointer around the screen. Such computer hardware and software, however, are not inexpensive, and require knowledge of the software, which often is a formidable task. Furthermore, small computers, such as a laptop or hand held devices are probably too costly for use as an inexpensive drawing toy.
Many children, particularly young children may not have an understanding of how to draw figures, even when trying to copy a drawing. They may not know where to begin., where to position other portions of the drawing, or how to produce a desired result. For example, they may not be able to perceive how to connect various portions of a drawing together.
Even those drawing toys that do exist are not intended to assist the user""s ability and understanding of how to draw a figure or the various portions thereof to produce the whole. Such assistance would be particularly desirable for helping Young children create drawings. It would be desirable, therefore, to provide a simple electronic drawing toy for children that would encourage creativity. Such a drawing toy would provide assistance so a user can learn how to, and practice making a drawing. Such an assisted drawing toy would be relatively small, would be self-contained, and easy to use.
In accordance with the present invention there is provided such an electronic drawing assist toy for children. An assist drawing toy incorporating the principles of the present invention would be relatively small., would be self-contained, and easy to use.
An electronic drawing assist toy in accordance with the present invention includes a digital display screen having a plurality of pixels arranged in a two-dimensional array and a memory for storing information to be displayed. A drawing assist toy in accordance with the present invention stores display information representing a graphic or image that can be displayed on the display screen. Upon selection of an image to be displayed, the drawing assist toy in accordance with the present invention selectively displays the selected image incrementally, pixel by pixel, to simulate the drawing of each line or segment which makes up the image to be displayed.
One observing the image being xe2x80x9cdrawnxe2x80x9d or incrementally displayed, typically a young child, can attempt to manually duplicate on a suitable drawing surface, each segment as it appears on the display screen. In this manner the drawing assist toy in accordance with the present invention assists one attempting to create a drawing who observes an incremental display of an image which provides guidance as to what lines to draw in sequence and where to start and when to stop. A disclosed embodiment of the electronic drawing assist toy in accordance with the present invention utilizes relatively simple control mechanisms for 1) selecting an image to be incrementally displayed, 2) for initiating the incremental display of the selected image, 3) for pausing the incremental display to permit the observer time to manually create at least a portion of the drawing corresponding to the most recent segment of the image displayed, 4) for reactivating the incremental image display operation, and 5) for erasing and repeating the incremental display from the beginning.
In an alternative embodiment of the electronic drawing assist toy in accordance with the present invention a stencil is provided to further assist in the creation of a drawing corresponding to the image being incrementally displayed. A stencil is employed having openings corresponding at least in part to one of the stored images in position on the surface on which a drawing is to be created. The stencil includes one or more control members which interact with the electronic drawing assist toy to identify the image to be displayed. Each portion of the image corresponds to a segment of the stencil. As the image is incrementally displayed, the user can trace the corresponding portion of the stencil to create a drawing on the underlying surface.
In a variation of the alternative stencil embodiment, the stencil is supported on a sensing surface. This sensor senses the manual trace of the stencil pattern. When the entire pattern is traced, a complete image is displayed on the display screen to show the complete image. While it is well known to use a stencil on mylar or the like tracing does not teach a child how to draw.
Additionally, the various embodiments of electronic drawing assist toys in accordance with the present invention can include an animation capability. Thus once the image is completely displayed it can become animated in that at least some portion of the image can begin to move. The animation can be enhanced, if desired. For example, by storing a number of different animations in memory, and by keeping a count of the number of times an image is displayed, the image animations can be varied as a function of the count. An audio message may also be produced.
Numerous other advantages and features of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description of the invention and the disclosed embodiments thereof, from the claims, and from the accompanying drawings in which the details of the invention are fully and completely disclosed as a part of this specification.